Categories

Miscellaneous

We all have time at work when things are moving a little slow. You might have a slow season, week, day, or maybe just an hour where there’s not much to do. Getting ahead on your work sometimes just isn’t an option. If we all worked eight hours a day, 100% dedicated to work, we’d eventually go insane. If you have access to a computer, or work from a computer, then the Internet is your gateway to remaining sane. I’ve composed my top five sites to visit when work is moving a little slow.

NOTE: Work productivity may increase with the use of one or more of these sites.

Craigslist

If you checked my Mother’s Internet history you would find Craigslist if the #1 visited site by a mile. While I’m not selling belongings, bartering services, or offering carpool rides I do find myself visiting Cragslist for my own personal entertainment. If you haven’t discovered Craigslist’s Best-of section you are missing out on a gold mind of material. These are posts that have been flagged by visitors that deserve to be recognized. An example would be a gem like this:

Date: 2009-11-10, 9:08PM
my girlfriend and dog and I live in our car
we normally drive up into the forest every night to sleep
but its starting to cost us too much money to drive up there every night
and its colder up there
looking for a driveway in which to park my car at night
must be ok with me peeing in your yard (discreetly)

If you find similar posts please flag it for Craigslist Best-Of and pass it on to the rest of us. With everyone’s help we can filter through the garbage posts and find the real gems waiting for us in the Best-of section.

Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon is a social media tool that many people use as a tactical way to increase traffic to their website or linkbait creation. For the non-social media user it’s a great way to find the best websites on the web. Stumbleupon has a top rated page too, but I prefer to go on my own stumbling adventures.

A result from my own stumbling

You pick the criteria and categories of sites you want to stumble and the algorithm then takes control. Each site you visit you can rate with a thumbs up or down to enhance the results. After playing around the with site you should be optimized and ready for those long winter afternoons.

Twitter

I use Twitter for a multitude of reasons, but I’ve found it’s a great way to break up the day. If you’re looking for basic ways to use Twitter you can read my post on Twitter Strategy.

Who you follow really depends on what your interests are. I enjoy sports so I follow people like ESPN, Chad Ochocinco, Andy Roddick, Lance Armstrong, and John Daly just to name a few. I recommend getting an application like Tweetdeck, or Tweet-r for Mac users, and then going to Twellow to find people that fit your interests. You don’t need to have a Twitter account to view others tweets, but you do if you want to respond and interact with them.

The one Twitter user that I recommend everyone follow, for the purposes of spicing things up at work, is Shitmydadsays. A 29-year old male who lives with his 73-year old father tweets his daily conversations with his father.

“That woman was sexy…Out of your league? Son. Let women figure out why they won’t screw you, don’t do it for them.”

I’ve been trying to convince my mother that we should set up an account for the things she says on a daily basis, but so far she has been unwilling to cooperate.

Addicting Games

Addicting Games.com should be visited with the understanding that you will be on this site for a significant amount of time. The adage of, “I wont get addicted, I’m not a gamer,” is a bunch of Bologna. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 13-year old kid playing hooky from school or a VP of Business Development. If you go there you will play games.

The ‘What’s Hot‘ page is a great place to start or you can search via category. Addicting Games.com is great because it only uses one window, it doesn’t require you download any software, you can be playing games in a matter of seconds, and it’s completely discrete! With a simple close of the tab you can get back to work without your boss ever knowing you’ve spent the past 3 hours killing zombies.

Schadenfreude

The last category of sites to visit when you’re bored I’ve titled Schadenfreude. It’s a collection of four of my favorite sites that feature either photos or posts by people that will simply make you laugh.

Look at That Fucking Hipster – Maybe it’s because I live in Portland Oregon, but I’ve seen way too many people walking around downtown like this. This site is a collection of photos with individuals dressed as hipsters.

“Okay, seriously. Not funny. Who deflated my dog?”

F My Life – One of the first sites that I came across featuring people posting their own personal mis-happenings and having the general public vote on how bad your life really is.

Today, my first girlfriend of over 3 years left me for another guy. She said she’s looking for someone who can financially provide for her in the future. The dude owns a T-Mobile kiosk. I’m going to medical school. FML

People of Walmart – I could spend hours upon hours on this site looking at all the photos posted. It’s truly amazing what some people will wear to go out shopping.

Wow, nothing says “I know how to make friends” like a shirt that incorporates computers AND farting! Ohio

My Drunk Texts.com – This is a little bit of a knock-off of Fmylife.com, but it’s a little more situational. Who hasn’t sent a drunk text they wish they could go back in time and not send? Another great perk of the site is you can create merchandise with your favorite quote from the site on it. A great way to blackmail your buddy who sent you this:

(330): So, last night. You got into your closet, and shut the doors. And then you opened the doors, walked out, said you were in Narnia and that it was cold. You grabbed your coat and went back in..

If you have any sites that didn’t make the cut just send them in a comment and I’ll be sure to put them up.

The past few weeks I’ve discussed fashion disasters and trends to avoid. I’ve also focused primarily on women’s fashion that, as I learned last week, was not typically ready-to-wear. In an effort to save face with my female readers I’ll be focusing on the males this week. I’ll also be focusing on what you should wear instead of what shouldn’t be worn. Inspired by Men Style.com’s 10 fashion essentials, here is my self proclaimed Men’s 6 wardrobe essentials.

Dark Wash Jeans

You can dress them up or you can dress them down. They’re versatile and can be coordinated with most any kind or color of shoe. They’re perfect with a t-shirt or with a blazer.

V-Neck Sweaters

Another versatile piece for the wardrobe. You can wear it with a t-shirt underneath, a dress shirt with the collar tucked, a dress shirt with the collar out (or ala GQ), and wear it plain or with a blazer. The V-neck is a must because it allows you to layer properly unlike the crew neck which is designed to be worn all by itself.

Black, Grey, and Navy Suit

Black, Navy, and Gray are the standards you should have in your collection. Go with a two-button or three-button either one looks great. Pairing it up with a coordinated vest adds some nice flair.

Black & Brown Dress Shoes

Shoes can make or break a man’s outfit. Tie everything together with the classic black or brown dress shoe. I’m partial to the square toe mainly because I have clodhoppers for feet and need the extra width.

Khakis

Not only is khaki any extremely versatile color the pants can be wore casual or dressy. Jeans can’t always been worn, but khakis can.

Black & Brown Belt

As part of being the total package, you need to complete your outfit with a belt. Personally, and I know this isn’t the norm, I’m a huge fan of the black and brown reversible belts. Maybe the quality is different and maybe they don’t last as long, because the buckle eventually breaks, but I love having that all-in-one feature.

Music collaboration isn’t limited to your buddies and a garage anymore. The use of social media and the Internet has brought musicians and song writers alike together for the ultimate collaboration. Since February 2007,Kompoz has given musicians that outlet. Classic Rock video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band bring non-musicians together, while Kompoz brings together the non-gamers. Music collaboration has a new home.

Prior to my discovery of Kompoz I didn’t know of any other way to create music than to meet fellow musicians around town at shows or at school. The growth of Pro Tools and Garage Band has given musicians a greater ability to record and distribute their work. With Kompoz, it doesn’t matter if I only have my drum set, because I can post my drum track on Kompoz and have anyone from around the world add in vocals, guitar, piano, or bass.

The Grateful Dead is arguably the greatest jam band of all time, but they weren’t formed in a digital world. The creation of sites like Kompoz makes me wonder where the direction music collaboration and composition will go. Will there come a time when a touring band previously played together only via the distribution of their individual instrumental tracks over the Internet? Only time will tell.

One of my favorite TV shows to watch with my father is the Guy Fieri show Diners Drive Ins and Dives. Guy Fieri went from an average Joe to Food Network cooking star overnight. Until recently you would not have guessed that based on his website. Guy Fieri has the same one of a kind look and cooking flare, but his website now has that same pizazz.

Fortunately for the readers of this blog the representatives of Guy Fieri, Tiv, is part of a new breed of ad agencies, but that doesn’t include search engine marketing. I was able to grab the cached version of Guy Fieri’s website, created by Hoekenga Design, which is still displaying the old website. The cached version was last updated on Apr 20, 2009 02:32:01 GMT meaning that in the past week Guy Fieri’s new website has gone live.

From a branding perspective it’s easy to see why Guy Fieri’s new website is a substantially better version. The amount of content on the new site has also exponentially increased and is ten fold easier to find from the homepage. That is where the statement stops and where the usability issues continue.

Usability Issues

Once you leave the homepage you’re off on an adventure similar to the adventures Guy Fieri makes across the country visiting restaurants.

Guido Navigation

The Restaurants Navigation

The Inside Dish Navigation

You can clearly see that the main navigation changes on every page. What happens if I want to go from the restaurants page to the TV page? I have to scroll down to the footer and search for it. From a usability standpoint this makes navigation too hard for visitors. If I have to scroll down to the footer each and every time I want to view a different page, because the navigation bar doesn’t have what I want, then what is the point of the navigation bar? A dynamic web page is great, but dynamic main navigation is not. The navigation needs to be the anchor of the site so that users can view the main buckets of content without having to search endlessly for it.

Another usability downside is Guy Fieri’s blog is hosted off-site. You would think that with the dollars Guy Fieri is spending he could at least get a WordPress blog for his sidekick Kleetus. Instead, they are using a non-branded blogspot blog that does exactly what you don’t want it to do. . . Take you away from the main site and with no links pointing back to the Guy Fieri website. As a user, I’m probably not going to hit the back button to go back to the Guy Fieri’s website. This means the visitor is lost and the potential shopping is too.

Guy Fieri’s store is a completely different problem that needs to be fixed. Unlike the blog, Guy Fieri’s store is hosted on his website, but once you reach the store their is no other navigation other than to add things to your cart. The store is still part of the old design created by Hoekenga Design which may be why their is these usability issues. Guy Fieri’s guestbook is another page designed by Hoekenga Design that has no navigation. In addition, the site is on a sub-domain which is substantially taking away from the linking structure.

Search Engine Optimization Issues

As mentioned previously, Guy Fieri’s new and improved website is miles above his last website. However, he still is not using any search engine optimization. Guy Fieri’s website does have title tags, but this website is not using all of my 4 easy steps to guarantee you higher rankings. I don’t know what Guy Fieri would want to rank for, but I’m sure he’d like to show up for more than just his name!

Another problem Guy Fieri’s website has, is he is without an XML or HTML site map. Earlier this week I discussed the power of XML sitemaps. If Guy Fieri’s website was using a properly optimized XML sitemap I never would have been able to pull the cached version of his old site. He would also find that many of his old links are dead and not redirecting properly.

The last piece of the search engine optimization puzzle is the load time and compactness of the website code. If you view the code for Guy Fieri’s website you’ll notice that their isn’t much code, but it’s all inclusive. What I mean is he is not using a CSS page to store all of the stylistic parameters of his site. This causes the site to load much slower, and also forces the search engines to try and parse through that mumble jumble.

Social Media Networking

Enough about ripping Guy Fieri’s website usability and lack of search engine optimization techniques, lets discuss what really rocks! Guy Fieri is a Twittering machine! I think it’s a movement by Food Network, because Rachel Ray started tweeting the exact same day as Guy Fieri, to get all Food Network cooking stars on Twitter. It’s really refreshing to get that authentic feel that you get from Guy Fieri’s tweets.

I’m really interested to see how Kleetus utilizes the blog. This is the first time I’ve heard about Guy Fieri’s right hand man, but it’s a really interesting perspective that I wish we were able to have while Guy Fieri was moving up the cooking world ranks.

Guy Fieri’s New Website IS Flavor Town

Guy Fieri has taken a huge step in the right direction with his new website and social media networking. With a little bit of work he’ll have an unbeatable, eatable, site that’s chocked full of flavor and fun. If you’re a big eater like me go check out Diners Drive Ins and Dives, you wont be disappointed.

The flowers are blooming and the temperatures are rising. Spring is in full session and that can only mean one thing . . . Spring 2009 Fashion Trends. The good people of Style.com have released their fashion trend report for spring 2009. Instead of breaking down what you should be wearing I’ll keep my trend of what you shouldn’t be wearing. Here are my 3 terrible spring 2009 fashion trends.

Geometry Lessons

I’m a food lover, but I’m not a fan of women looking like food. Comme des Garçons has given women an outlet to look like an Oreo cookie. I can’t tell if it’s double stuffed or not though? Either way, this dress is anything but a refreshing dunk with milk.

Sporting Goods

This has to be one of the worst outfits I have ever seen in my life. If someone could please explain to me what the hell Louise Goldin was thinking when she designed this please let me know. Something about the camel toe effect combined with knee braces just screams somebody help me!

Trash and Vaudeville

When I read about this trend I thought it was a shoe-in for a terrible trend. I wasn’t disappointed. Their is something about jean jackets and a cloth diaper that just says trashy. Apparently Alexander Wang has managed to make this clothing combination a high fashion trend.

Have any fashion trends of your own or ones you’ve spotted this fall that should be banned too? Send me a link or post a comment to add yours.

It’s hard being an unsigned indie rock band from Portland, Oregon unless you’re utilizing your social network and social media profiles like Delta! Bravo does. This group touches me personally because the Mozart of the group, Tom Shimmin, was a group member of mine in my last class during college. While I’d like to take some credit for Tom’s succinct use of social media unfortunately I can’t. He knows what he’s doing and has been utilizing his social media profiles just fine.

Like any band that wants to be relevant, Delta! Bravo‘s Myspace Page is utilized to inform and connect with their loyal fans. What takes Delta! Bravo beyond 3/4 of the wannabe Portland band’s is the fact they have and actively manage a Twitter account. If you talk to any band they’ll tell you the hardest part of their job is promoting their shows not playing in them. So what can you do to actively promote your shows besides flyering the sidewalks of downtown? Tweet, write bulletins in Myspace, actively update you Myspace upcoming shows, and create a Facebook event.

It will be interesting to see how the social media efforts Delta! Bravo has implemented effects their turnout for their upcoming show tomorrow night at the Hawthorne Theather. I’ll breakdown what went right and what Delta! Bravo could improve on to ensure their next shoe is a dance fest like none other. Any suggestions? Feel free to leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list.

Last week, I discussed the spring time phenomenon known as muffin top, and this week I will cover holey jeans. This trend has been hot for a couple of years now, and I still don’t understand it. People are actually willing to pay more for a pair of jeans that has less material then a pair of jeans that are completely intact.

So in an effort to help out the arts and crafts business, instead of the Hollister’s of the world, I’ve scoured the Internet to help us create the perfect pair of $200 jeans for only $20!

The site e-how, the Internet’s how-to capital, had a great how-to guide for creating ripped jeans.

Take the pencil or washable marker and mark where you want to put the holes.

To make holes that keep the white strands in the hole – Grab a razor blade, and carefully fray and slice, strand by strand, the area that you have marked off. Using the razorblade, cut off the blue strands, separating them from the white stands.

To make wide open holes – Grab a razor blade, and slice the center of where you would like your hole to be. Take the scissors and, using the hole, cut out the spot that you would like to have a hole. Take the razor blade to fray the edges of the hole.

Beauty is divine unless your clothing is disproportionate and does not fit you. I come across these types of fashion blunders on a daily basis. Today’s look comes out of hibernation every year once the weather warms up. On the campus of Portland State University it runs rampant throughout the park blocks like a virus. This trend is known as the muffin top.

Now I’m no fashion expert, but I do believe we can all see the problem with the picture above. I’ve never really understood why these culprits just don’t buy a larger shirt. I have two sisters and i can tell you they wouldn’t be caught dead in a muffin top. This does appear to be a world-wide problem though. On April 9th, it was reported that half of Britain’s women have muffin top waistlines!

What makes this trend so unusual is no one has the heart to tell these poor people how bad this looks. Instead their photo wind up on MuffinHuntin.com for the world to see. The most effective social media avenue for the muffin top is Flickr. A vast majority of the 4,167 results and 19 groups pertain to the muffin top we are discussing. Facebook has 381 groups pertaining to muffin top, but unfortunately we are still without an application.

To help spread the word about this epidemic to your family and friends you can display this badge on your Blog or Profile.

Copy and Paste the HTML code below to display the above badge on your site

The Bad Plus combines a blur of Jazz, Rock, and Classical influences and then throws in a couple extra sharps and minor chords for good measure. Their music, to an outsider, could be described as noise with no direction. But, like sushi it takes consistent trials and a willingness to immerse yourself head first into their tantalizing tracks. After all, Jazz is an incredibly involved music genera. For a Jazz group The Bad Plus is one of the more social media driven groups I’ve come across. While they are not at the level of a major label Top 40 group, they do more then your typical Jazz band.

One look at The Bad Plus and you wonder, “How the hell did this combination of guys meet?” One listen and you know they were destined to be together. Aside from my personal musical bias, The Bad Plus does a formidable job of social networking considering they are a jazz group. The combination of a Website, Myspace, Facebook, and Blog helps relay their message and creates an important communication channel with their fan base. Of course they’re on Pandora, Last.FM, and ITunes, but from an interaction standpoint they have all of their bases covered.

I would say that The Bad Plus should follow the path the Hip-Hop community uses with social media, but as a Jazz group the impact of their efforts is limited. As The Bad Plus continues to grow as a group, their most recent album For All I Care includes a vocalist, they have the opportunity to enhance their overall brand. Through the use of a self monitored YouTube channel, implementation of Event listings, and creation of a social media community The Bad Plus would be the baddest Jazz group on the planet.

In light of the job shortages I’m here to propose three jobs in social media. These positions could be created by yourself and eventually you could, like the rest of the community, call yourself and expert or consultant.

Official Tweeter – We already have agents, publicists, personal assistants, and secretary’s for jobs so why can’t we make a more social media savvy position? An official tweeter would be responsible for collecting, responding, and distributing tweets to keep the community up to date with the latest news on the most important people. For example someone could be Guy Kawasaki’s official tweeter which would free him up some substantial time. Hopefully he’d give a good benefits plan, I have a feeling they’re going to need a spare set of thumbs.

Executive Commenter – Similar to the official tweeter this individual would be responsible for scouring the web, reading blog posts, and writing comments in response that don’t find their way into the spam filter. The main benefits gained by the employer would include the perception that they’re really up on industry trends. The downside, clients may think that’s all you do.

Social Media Engager – This individual would be responsible for trying all trying and reporting on each and every tool on the Web 2.0 handbook. It’s suggested this individual is hired on at a very young age because it may take them 30 years to learn each and every one of these.

If you have any recommendations for social media driven jobs please leave them in a comment below.